Dragon's Isolation - Miranda Martin Page 0,56

and love isn’t in control. The animal is.

He bursts into a run and disappears. In shock, I stand there shaking. My knees are too weak to stay standing, so I drop to the floor. The sharp pain brings focus. He’s gone.

“Melchior!” Addison yells behind me.

I can’t sit here doing nothing. Climbing to my feet I turn to see if she’s okay. She kneels beside Melchior. There’s blood pooled on the floor around his head. She tears part of her shirt off and dabs at the wound on his head. He stirs, eyes opening, then he roars. Melchior leaps to his feet.

“Where is he?” Melchior growls.

“I don’t know,” I say, my thoughts a confused mess. “He asked about— oh shit…” My mouth is dry, throat clenched tight as I shake. “Malcolm.”

15

AMARA

Melchior is faster than I am, outpacing me until he’s a blur in the distance, at least a city block ahead of me. The stitch in my side burns, and I can’t catch a deep enough breath, but I keep running. Feet pounding the pavement as hard and as fast as I can move.

The look on his face when he looked at me is seared into my thoughts. I can’t shake it, can’t quit looking at it. Even as I run, it’s overlaid on the world around me. I hurt him. He thinks I betrayed him.

Shidan is after our son. The worst part is, I understand it. He’s regressing, and what’s the one choice no parent wants to ever make? Your child or your love. I know what choice I would make, and it’s clear Shidan has done the same.

That primal need to protect, to be dominant, has taken over. I have to get to Jolie before Shidan does. He might hurt her, or Sverre, or… god knows what. Faster! Run faster! Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have seen this coming. All the little signs I ignored are now flashing neon signs in my head.

Attacking Melchior. The way he was pacing. The little looks. All signs. All ones I missed. I should have known where his thoughts were going.

Life may be a series of moments, but that makes this the worst moment of mine. I’ve lost both my guys. The empty streets echo my footsteps back, mocking. It sounds like an admonishment with each motion forward. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

We shouldn’t have tried to lock him up. I could have reasoned with him. Made him understand before we locked him away. It was only for a little bit, Addison is going to find a cure. She has to.

I’m almost there. It’s hard to see, everything is blurry, sweat stings my eyes, and my heart is pounding. I race up the broken stairway to Jolie’s, but as soon as I hit the hallway my stomach knots and time stops.

The door to her apartment hangs ajar.

Shit.

“JOLIE!” I yell, a burst of adrenaline washing away the pains.

I burst through her door and enter a nightmare. Jolie is huddled in a corner, curled around Rverre. She’s white as a ghost when she looks up, tears streaking down her face. Melchior looms large over her, and there is no sign of Sverre.

“I’m sorry,” she says, shaking. “I’m so sorry.”

The light creeps slowly across the wall. I know, analytically, that it’s marking the passage of time, but time doesn’t matter. The emptiness in my heart and soul will never heal. There isn’t enough time in the universe for that.

I screwed up. I don’t know what I could have done different, despite the fact I’ve replayed every moment over and over at least a million times. I keep looking for that one instance, that moment that if I had done something different, this wouldn’t be happening.

Shidan is out of the City. I don’t know where, but I know he has our son. Normally I’d never think twice about Shidan having our son, but he’s regressed. He’s more animal than he is man thanks to this blasted disease.

I should be out there hunting them, but how? The quarantine is still in effect. We can’t get close to each other, and we sure as heck can’t have the Zmaj group up. If they did, we could lose them all. So what do I do? Despair is a black maw yawning and eating all my thoughts.

“I’m going to get him,” I say, leaping to my feet.

“Amara,” Jolie says. “You can’t.”

“Like hell I can’t!” I yell. “I’m the only one who can. He’ll listen to me. My man is still in there. He’s